Collapses of legacy mines in a spatial and evolutionary context

Abandoned underground slate mines pose an increased collapse hazard within otherwise stable and well-managed landscapes. This paper presents three examples of remarkable gravity-driven processes in Czech slate mines—flexural toppling, rockfall, and sinkhole collapse—that have developed within broader geosystem interactions. These failures were investigated through field inspection, speleological mapping, and geological analysis. Dendrogeomorphological survey of flexural toppling at the Kunz Mine provides unique, pioneering data on the historical development of this type of gravitational failure. Rock mass failure and subsequent collapse depend not only on long-term factors—such as mineral composition, geological structure, topography, and methods of underground excavation—but also on current environmental conditions, including water and airflow, humidity, freeze–thaw cycles, and mineral weathering. The resulting cascades of weathering and erosional processes repeatedly drive the mines into states of instability. To better understand the chain of processes leading to the loss of stability equilibrium, it is therefore essential to consider the broader spatiotemporal relationships among the individual landscape features in which the abandoned mines are embedded.